New Planet: Gliese 581 g

Newly discovered planet may be first truly habitable exoplanet:

Discovery suggests our galaxy may be teeming with potentially habitable planets.

Washington, D.C. Astronomers have found a new, potentially habitable Earth-sized planet. It is one of two new planets discovered around the star Gliese 581, some 20 light years away. The planet, Gliese 581g, is located in a “habitable zone”—a distance from the star where the planet receives just the right amount of stellar energy to maintain liquid water at or near the planet’s surface. The 11- year study, published in the Astrophysical Journal and posted online at arXiv.org, suggests that the fraction of stars in the Milky Way harboring potentially habitable planets could be greater than previously thought—as much as a few tens of percent.

The planet was detected by a team of astronomers in the Lick-Carnegie Exoplanet Survey, led by principal investigator Steven Vogt, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and co-investigator Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The planet is believed to have a mass of three to four times that of the Earth and an orbital period of just under 37 days. Vogt unofficially named the planet Zarmina, after his wife.

More on this:
Nasa: NASA and NSF-Funded Research Finds First Potentially Habitable Exoplanet.
University of California (UC) Santa Cruz: Newly discovered planet may be first truly habitable exoplanet.
Carnegie Institution: Potentially Habitable Planet Discovered.